Part of my kitchen is under my bathroom, if I cut holes in the kitchen ceiling and install downlighters then these will be, in effect, under the bathroom floorboards.
Do the electrical regs say anything about this? A lot of spilled water for instance could soak through the carpet and drip between the floorboards onto the back of the downlighters.
Is this something or nothing?
Thanks,
Bill
if its the 12v downlighters there should not be a problem
Technically it could be an issue, but IME not one anyone ever thinks about for too long... In my parents' last house, they had a darkroom in the loft above a bathroom. One time when I left the tap on in the darkroom, it eventually drained through to the bathroom below. The "fishbowl" style light fitting would happily have housed several fish before the bulb went, and there was water running down the light-switch cord.
The risk is mostly to the fittings rather than to human life. If you flood your bathroom, you're probably going to take up the carpet anyway, so you can just lift the floor boards and check the lighting. Better still, get rid of the carpet and fit something more water resistant.
HTH, Al
If you regularly have water spilling into the ceiling void, electrics might be the least of your worries.
I had such a flood in a rented house once, due to some tw*t (that * isn't an i) using the upstairs shower, despite the fact that the bath was obviously not sealed to the tiles at the time. The kitchen lightbulb (compact fluorescent bulb) ended up full of water, but still working. Totally bizarre, you could see the water level through the smoked glass. You've never seen anyone sprint so fast to a fusebox before.
In the end, no damage was done at all. The fittings, the bulb and even the plaster all survived.
Christian.
Not bizarre at all really, water simply isn't a very good conductor so basic electrical things (as opposed to electronic where high[er] impedances are involved) will work quite happily under water.
If the system is protected by an RCD then that will probably trip but most ligting circuits aren't RCD protected. The chances of water tripping an MCB are slight. Water straight onto a hot bulb will often make it explode though.
Even electronics will survive a soaking usually, especially if you make it clean before you dry it. I've been seen washing keyboards under the tap after they've had coffee etc. spilt in them and they often work fine afterwards (often better because of the cleaning!).
A guy at work thought it would be A Good Idea if he used a hot air gun to dry a keyboard out. He created a new style of 1 key keyboard by melting all the keys into one blob.
Bob
My mother did that to hers. Not content with pouring coffee over her laptop, she proceeded to dry it out with a 3kW fan heater. She was so lucky that it only melted the keyboard and not the screen or casing.
Christian.
I can't help thinking that application of the sort of heat to warp a keyboard might release some noxious, possibly poisonous, fumes!
PoP
Been there, done that :-) Also with a floppy disc. Said disc had "vitally important files" on it, apparently, and had had hot chocolate spilled on it some weeks previously. I split the case, took the actual disc out, rinsed it under running luke warm water and put it into a fresh case. Retrieved all except one of the files.
Back to the original question - isn't the space under a bathroom floor "outside the zones" and therefore unrestricted in terms of what you can fit there, electrically? That's in the regulations anyway, so the only thing stopping you putting electrical stuff under the bathroom floorboards is any concern you may personally have about floods and the like.
HTH
Hwyl!
M.
I seem to recall a requirement for an earthed screen if you install electric underfloor. May have been a manufacturer requirement, rather than regs, though.
Christian.
No, it's in the regs - electric underfloor heating cables should have an earthed screen. How this is achieved varies from system to system. I suspect that this is because UFH forms part of the floor system - it is often layed in the tile adhesive for example. Any void underneath the floorboards however still looks to me as if it is outside the zones.
Hwyl!
M.
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